A Bishop of Ill-Begotten Faith
by That-Hoopy-Frood
Summary: Vato Falman is a simple man


Vato Falman was a simple man.

The people who were close to him soon learned that he didn't have much to say. He was a dignified, quiet person –– ghosting the peripheries of the room, going largely unnoticed regardless of his height, content with his place at the edge of conversation. He was ashen-faced and rail-thin, his premature silver hair giving him the appearance of a much older man. His Amestrian uniform fit him poorly, both in body (the sleeve cuffs barely reached his wrists) and in spirit; he was no fighter. But despite his crippling inexperience in combat, Warrant Officer Falman remembered a great many things.

He knew that an eidetic memory was a good trait to have as an intelligence officer. His mind made Falman useful to his friends and superiors. Some of the men had taken to referring to him as a walking encyclopedia, and though the moniker felt acutely dehumanizing, Falman could not deny the truth in its usage. He knew hundreds of addresses and phone numbers and names; he cataloged every honorific and appellation within his memory, and was able to summon the information with the ease of perusing an index. He knew a bitter enemy from a forgotten ally long before an introduction hung unbroken in the air. He knew the equity of law and order hinged on his being able to remember, to pick the right thread glinting amidst a brocade of other lives, other selves, blurred across the gray spaces of good and evil. His indefatigable memory ensured justice was served.

Falman knew many things. He knew he had little right to feel as lonely as he did, with the company of so many remembered faces. He knew he should feel beholden to the Amestrian military for giving him a livelihood, for taking a disorderly son of a bookkeeper and turning him into a soldier. Instead, he lay awake at night dreading the days circumstance would wrench him away from his reports and force him to shoot a gun. He knew that weapons were not for him. He knew fate had consigned to deny him a choice in the matter.

Falman knew Kain Fuery was afraid of the dark. The Sergeant-Major had made a name for himself fighting in the border skirmishes with Creta. According to the official report, after a nighttime perimeter sweep, Fuery lost his phosphor flares; his radio had gone quiet. He wandered for hours through the craters and calderas of a battlefield without a name. When he found his regiment, he begged them to hang a lantern from the lintel of the barracks, to chase away the shadows.

Falman knew Heymans Breda was one of the most intelligent men in the military. He remembered Breda from the military academy, back when Falman was a young man already going gray at the temples. He remembered how Officer Cadet Breda said it wasn't due to stress, or a bad hand in the genetic crapshoot. 'You think too much,' Breda had affirmed in that blunt, brusque manner of his. Falman knew the Second Lieutenant had the mind of a philosopher and the wisdom of an academic. Instead, he became a soldier. Falman believed it said less about Breda's intelligence and far more about his heart.

He knew Jean Havoc smoked cigarettes because he was a brave man. And the Warrant Officer knew that bravery is being the only person to know how frightened one truly is. The acrid smoke, the miasma of nicotine and aftershave, hid far more than the blonde man's crooked grin. When Havoc lost his legs, some of the veneer splintered, and Falman knew the Second Lieutenant had lost something he could never bargain or threaten or charm his way into getting back.

Falman knew the Colonel was in love with his adjutant.

If Vato were more like Major Armstrong, a man predisposed to ardor and sentimentality, he would have bemoaned the tragedy of it. The fraternization policies were in place to avoid any adverse impact on discipline, authority, morale or the ability of command to accomplish its mission. Falman respected the Colonel and the Lieutenant far too much to believe they would ever entertain toeing the line. They were officers before they were man and woman. Like Falman, they had sacrificed their humanity for the monikers of their duty. What was unsaid had to remain unsaid, diffusing between glances that somehow trapped a whole universe of meaning within the silence.

Falman knew the Colonel and the Lieutenant shared a past; it was not difficult for him to trace the connections between the Hero of Ishval and the progeny of a disgraced alchemist from the East. But the precise extent of their shared history remained stubbornly elusive, even to someone as intuitive as Falman. Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye never spoke of the time before Ishval, and their silence provoked defamatory tittle-tattle from Eastern Headquarters all the way to Central. There was plenty of rumor and hearsay, which Falman took pains to avoid, or outright slander, which Falman despised, even as some of the brass in the Amestrian military reveled in it, keen to knock the cocky, ambitious Colonel down a few pegs.

Colonel Mustang, for all his heresies, never acknowledged the whispers. Neither did Hawkeye.

And though he had unprecedented insight into the relationship between his superiors, Warrant Officer Falman was a simple man, and simple men do not meditate on the nature of love and war.

Because Vato Falman was in love with the Colonel's adjutant, too.

* * *

 _"Officer Cadet Falman!"_

 _Vato stepped forward. The rainwater had soaked through his boots. Mud crusted the hem of his pants. The sleet was bitterly cold; he could barely move his fingers, and he had long ago lost feeling in his feet. When the Sergeant pressed a pistol into his hands, Vato nearly dropped it. The metal bit his skin, florets of ice crusted across the grip._

 _"Torso, center target," the man barked, shouting to be heard above the deluge. "You're surrounded by Ishvalan hostiles and you're the only one with a full magazine."_

 _Vato tried to blow his hair out of his eyes, but the rain plastered it to his forehead. He held the pistol loosely in his hand, unable to curl his fingers around the grip. He extended his arms out in front of him and prepared to aim in on his target with his dominant eye... if he could see anything through the mist and sleet. He blinked rapidly to keep the rain drops out of his eyes. Behind him, he heard Officer Cadet Havoc murmuring some words of half-crafted encouragement. Officer Cadet Breda just grunted. Neither one of them envied him._

 _"Hurry it up, Cadet! It's raining like a pissing cow out here."_

 _Vato brought the pistol to bear. He swallowed. He fired a single shot, the recoil jarring his arm in its socket, sending a lance of pain to the tips of his fingers. He heard wood splinter as the bullet buried in the fence behind the line of targets. Some of the recruits snickered. Breda grunted again._

 _The Sergeant shook his head, throwing damp in all directions. The weather had turned him irritable, and Vato Falman was a far easier target than straw dummies half-obscured by rain. "That was embarrassing, Cadet. You're a bloody disgrace; the impact was at least half a meter right and back of your target."_

 _"It's raining quite heavily, Sergeant," said Vato quietly. He fought the urge to look down at the mud. "There is a refraction index I failed to take into account when I took the shot, sir. The ratio of the velocity of light on a normal day to its velocity in a specified medium, particularly this rain––"_

 _"I didn't ask for an explanation, Cadet! Even with your squinty eyes you should be able to tell the difference between a bloody fence and a human-shaped dummy! You ought to know, Falman, you see one every time you look in the damn mirror! HAWKEYE."_

 _Vato inclined his head, the rain running like teardrops down his high cheekbones. He took a profound interest in his patched boots as a petite woman pushed through the crowd of assembled trainees. Vato looked up as she stood at his shoulder. He couldn't see her face beneath the hood of her cloak, but he knew that somewhere under there was a thin, joyless face a pair of hard eyes. Her eyes reminded Vato of amber glass, or butterscotch._

 _"Hawkeye, show everyone how it's done. Take aim!"_

 _Instead, the woman turned to her peer. Vato squirmed, unused to and uncomfortable with being the sole focus of her bright amber eyes. She made him feel at once very small... and immeasurably important. Like a statue ready to crumble to dust at a single touch._

 _"Cadet," she said, her voice low and soft, "assume a proper shooting position with your feet shoulder width apart and your knees slightly bent. Don't lock out your knees and don't flex your leg muscles. Establish a grounded base with the lower half of your body."_

 _The Sergeant crossed his arms. His mustache bristled. "I gave you an order, Hawkeye. We don't have time for this. If Cadet Falman knows what's good for him, he'll drag himself through this training and then go hide behind a desk in Central for the rest of his life."_

 _Hawkeye didn't seem to hear her commanding officer. Or, more likely, she elected to ignore him. She kept her attention on Vato: "You were blading your body sideways, Cadet. Square your shoulders towards the target. Your arms should be extended but not locked."_

 _"Hawkeye!" shouted the Sergeant. Vato knew it was only because of her exceptional reputation he didn't haul Hawkeye away by the scruff of the collar. "Shoot the damn gun or shut the hell up."_

 _She moved closer to him. Her words feathered across his cheek. "Don't anticipate the shot. Instead, focus on your aim and technique. Press the trigger in a controlled manner and focus on your front sight."_

 _"Woman, I swear to God––"_

 _Vato Falman took another shot. The bullet didn't hit the center of the target._

 _But it_ did _hit the target._

 _He could almost imagine Riza Hawkeye's smile._

 _Later, as they filtered back inside to shelter from the rain, Vato found her in the mess hall._

 _"May I sit with you?"_

 _A curt nod. "Of course."_

 _Vato took a seat, his back ramrod straight, easily one of the tallest recruits in the mess. The younger soldier sat hunched over her meal, her shoulders bunched, as though she were trying to disappear._

 _"Why did you help me?" Vato asked after a moment of pregnant silence._

 _Cadet Hawkeye stopped pushing her food around her plate and looked up at him through her winged bangs. She continued to stare, unblinking, and Vato cleared his throat._

 _"In this sort of cutthroat environment, selflessness is a rare thing. I only regret that I have nothing with which to repay you for your kindness."_

 _Her words were cold and clipped when she said, "I taught you how to be a better killer; that is no kindness."_

 _Her answer surprised him. The reputation of the Hawk's Eye was well-established: a young sniper who had been propelled through the curriculum, her training regiment accelerated until she surpassed cadets much older than her, including Vato himself. A gunsmith and weapons expert who abhorred killing. Rather than baffling, Vato found the contradiction intriguing. Here was a person who found as little joy in the art of combat as he did._

 _"I have no desire to kill," he said gently._

 _"Does anyone?"_

 _"Well, certainly, there are individuals who take pride in their skills and seek the glory of fighting in war… there's that Major Kimblee fellow, you know…"_

 _Vato didn't realize her question was rhetorical until she gave him a funny look, quirking her eyebrows and pursing her mouth into a thin line. He trailed off, throughly embarrassed._

 _Still, her expression almost made it worth it. She seemed so much softer and kinder when she wasn't peering down a proverbial crosshair._

 _"You're very literal, Cadet," she noted wryly._

 _Vato felt the tips of his ears burning. He prayed to a god he didn't believe in that he wasn't blushing. "I suppose I just like to answer questions."_

 _"What is Major Kimblee's serial number?"_

 _"O-513190," intoned Vato without hesitation._

 _"Hmm." Cadet Hawkeye stabbed an amorphous pile of_ something _akin to spinach, but she didn't eat it. "Do you have all our serial numbers memorized?"_

 _He shrugged. "Not by conscious effort, no. I just happened to see the Major's dossier in passing."_

 _"Do you know my serial number, Officer Cadet Falman?"_

 _"Ah," he shifted, "I do not. Information about you is not readily available. If you don't mind my saying so, Cadet, you're something of an enigma around here."_

 _"I am a soldier, sir," she said quietly. The barriers went back up and she receded back to a place where Vato wasn't welcome. "And soldiers are very simple people."_

 _But she was not a soldier, Vato realized, though he didn't say it aloud. She placed no stock in promotion and glory like some of the military brass. She took no pleasure in killing. She was not a simple person because she shirked the reputation that had bestowed upon her so much respect and renown._

 _He wondered, then, what had brought her to the battlefield. It was not the Führer's empty propaganda; the man's words dripped with so much sticky patriotic rhetoric it was a small wonder his mouth didn't glue shut. It wasn't for King and country, like Havoc and Breda, or to dredge up an inkling of a purpose, like himself. No… Riza Hawkeye had found her calling a long time ago, and it, whatever it was, had lead her to the doorstep of war and bloodshed. The military was not the cause, merely a consequence._

 _"They're shipping me out to Ishval tomorrow. The Daliha District."_

 _Vato's blood ran like ice water. "I'm… I'm so sorry… forgive me, I didn't know…"_

 _He understood now why the Sergeant had neglected to punish Hawkeye for her insubordination. It would seem more than a little redundant to discipline a woman about to be shipped to the front lines of hell._

 _She peered at him with her beautiful, terrifying amber eyes. "It is not you who should be begging my forgiveness, Vato. We simple people have forfeited the right to contrition."_

 _"But not regret," he countered. "There is nothing more human than ruminating on what could have been."_

 _"Speculating on the past does nothing to change the present," she said bitterly. "It only brings more pain."_

 _"Good," affirmed Vato, uncharacteristically unyielding. "Pain reminds us that there is a world beyond the battlefield. Pain means you still care."_

 _She flashed a small, sad smile that nearly broke his heart. "But I_ don't _care, Vato. I don't care about Amestris, or the Führer, or the military. I care about one man, and if I see him on the battlefield, we will greet each other with the blindness of strangers._

 _"Because the world has changed us. Because its destruction is our shared truth, and our collective shame."_

* * *

When the Führer reassigned Falman to the North, the Warrant Officer accepted his new orders with grace. When Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes bled to death in a phone booth, when Lust shredded Lieutenant Havoc's spine, Falman swallowed his grief, crushed it into a singularity within his chest, and endured, even though it hurt so much.

When Roy Mustang chose a prodigious sniper as his adjutant, long ago, and when Bradley stripped her from the Colonel's side, Falman said nothing; he merely accepted what he had always known to be true.

He knew that there was little room for kindness and mercy in the world. As soldiers, they could ill-afford the luxury of tenderness. A bleeding heart tended to summon the sharks. Falman's commanding officer had his ambitions, and Roy Mustang allowed neither law nor legislation to stand in his way. But when Bradley took away the Flame Alchemist's shadow, Mustang had inadvertently revealed that he was a selfless man in a selfish world. That he loved far too much, and cared far too little. That in protecting his back, Riza Hawkeye had become his biggest blind spot.

A tragedy indeed.

Of course, Falman understood that every soldier is prepared to die from the moment they don the uniform. But Hawkeye had shown him that not every military officer regards his subordinates as pawns on a chessboard. They had names, families. They lived and loved. They were humans who cried at funerals and raged at the death of a beloved friend who showed far too many pictures of his family. No matter what was to come, irregardless of her own well-being, Riza Hawkeye was ready to die to fulfill the duty of her superior, to stitch the Colonel's humanity back together when heartbreak threatened to tear it apart.

And Falman loved her for it.

But the words were not for him. Vato Falman knew his place. He would follow his orders. He would carry his commanding officer's paperwork to and from the archives. He would nod when he needed to nod. He would salute when he needed to salute. He would deliver the mail, sign on the dotted line, stay quiet, said his "Yes, sirs" and "No, sirs", make himself readily available while remaining entirely invisible.

Because Vato Falman was a simple man. And simple men are not made for glory.


End file.
